In Your Heart of Chambers
by her black tights
Summary: AU. After his arrest for assault two years and six months ago, Tate Langdon comes back to Los Angeles, expecting everything to be just as he left it. Instead, he finds a bitter ex-girlfriend and a two year old girl with eyes just like his. Will he be able to convince Violet that he's changed or will he sink deeper into the darkness that has always threatened to swallow him whole?
1. Chapter 1

"Tate Langdon, you are now a free man."

The words fall on deaf ears as he stands there, lips pursed and eyes focusing not on the man who is speaking to him, but the empty space a few feet off. Someone should be there, someone with bright eyes and honey golden hair who once whispered that she loved him into his hair on a sweaty July night when she was young and he was stupid. The man is still talking, saying something about the terms of his release and his probation, but Tate Langdon, newly free man, isn't hearing a word of it. He's eyes are focused on the place where someone is supposed to be and his fists are crushing their way around empty air like it did something terrible to him.

"No one is here to meet me?"

They are the first words that he spoke during the hours they had spent together and the man can't help but jump. There's a sympathetic frown in his voice as he touches the boy, twenty years and the status of being a repeat offender doesn't make anyone a man, no matter what the law might say, and nods. "Were you expecting someone?" the man asks, his voice kind. He usually isn't this way with released prisoners but this one is different. There's something about him that tugs at his heart strings, the stories that start with his file and end with his sad eyes, sadder than any twenty year old has any right to be. He feels for him so when the boy shrugs, forlorn and broken, he sighs, wanting to offer words of comfort but he doesn't know who the boy was waiting for and their absence was expected or not.

The next few minutes pass in a blur. He finishes his spiel, gives Tate the prison approved street clothes, and sends him on his way and tries to tell himself that everything is going to be okay, that this kid isn't his fucking responsibility but even later that night, after his compulsory love-making session with his wife has ended and she has fallen asleep, he can't get the look on the boy's face when he saw the empty reception area out of his mind.

* * *

He knows he shouldn't be surprised. After the hell he's put her through, he knows that he couldn't have expected her to wait for him like some lovesick bimbo writing love letters to some limp-dicked loser on death row. She's too full of fire for that, always spitting cruel words at him when he deserved it the most. But still, it would've been nice. That's what he tells himself at least as he tries to shake the dark feeling in the pit of his stomach, like someone poured ice water down his mouth in the middle of the night until it froze and left him heavy and all wrong.

It's a long walk to the bus station and he has a lot of time to think. He thinks about her, wide brown eyes and curved, cruel mouth and how they fucked the night before he was arrested, her breath sweet and her teeth sharp at the skin of his neck. He thinks about the way she makes him feel, like he's on the best high of his life only better, and he thinks that maybe, that's why he feels so shitty. It's just withdrawals, he tells himself, as he buys his bus ticket to the town where he used to live, but thinking back to the empty reception area, he isn't so sure.

The bus ride's too short. He doesn't have enough time to map out the entirety of her skin with his mind nor does he have the time to write out his apology in morse code on the inside of his ribcage with the beat of his telltale heart. By the time he reaches sunny L.A., he feels like he's just gotten on the bus when he thought he had a whole hour ahead of him to put into words what he's felt for two fucking years, staring up at the ceiling of Cell Block 5 and trying to create a picture of her face using his imagination (its tendency to spin out of control is finally coming in handy when he's trying to remember the texture of the scar on her left kneecap or the way the left side of her mouth twitches up slightly higher than the right when she smiles).

When he gets off the bus, his Converse-clad feet are pointed in the direction of the Murder House before they even hit the ground.

* * *

She wakes up each morning thinking she's in a dream. Sleep has always had a hold on her that she never could shake, making the waking world feel like a nightmare and the sleeping world her happily ever after just because in her dreams, she could be with him. It's a sad thought and it's one that catapults her out of bed, reaching for the pack of cigarettes that she told her mother she had thrown out three years again, and lighting it in a practiced motion of her hand that makes it clear that she isn't planning on quitting any time soon.

Violet takes a drag and leans against her headboard, letting out a sigh that's older than all of her nineteen years. It's five in the morning and she knows that she's going to need to join the world of the living soon but she wants to put it off for as long as possible. Joining the world of the living means confronting the reality of her life and what it had become in his absence, a sick and twisted joke that she didn't find very fucking funny, thank you very much. She feels the house stirring to life around her, heralding the end of the small amount of peace she had to herself.

Suddenly, there's a tiny-fisted knock on her door and she curses underneath her breath, putting her cigarette out in the mug that she kept at her bedside for this explicit purpose. Violet gets up, trying to banish the cigarette smoke from the room with a wild waving of her arms before she reaches the door and throws it open, revealing her little slice of reality, weighed down with sleep and little girl troubles.

"Mommy, I'm tired," the little cherub child whines, reaching up for her nineteen year old mother with chubby, jam-stained fingers. Violet sighs before bending over and picking her up, walking her back to her bed. The two year old's breath is soft and sweet at the nape of her neck and she's saying something about a nightmare and an imaginary friend but her mother isn't awake enough to truly process what she's saying beyond, "oh, that's nice, baby."

As she tucks the child in bed next to her, she tries not to think about all the thing that happened in this bed before this moment. She tries not to remember wistfully who used to sleep next to her all those years ago when she was young and stupid and she keeps herself from whispering his name underneath her breath like she does sometimes when she's feeling especially masochistic. He used to say he'd always come when she called.

Her little girl is pulling at her hand, begging for her attention, and she wishes she could give her everything like she deserves. "Sorry, Cosette. I'm just tired," she admits and her daughter nods like she understands and cuddles into the old, ratty Nirvana shirt Violet's wearing, a shirt whose origins she doesn't even want to think about (he gave it to her after the first time they fucked and said she'd earned it and she rolled her eyes and threw his pillow at him but was laughing the whole time). "Me too," Cosette Juliet Harmon replies before curling her chubby little fists into the cotton shirt. Violet pulls her close, remembering the words her mother told her when she used to complain about how her kid couldn't seem to spend the three hours between 5 A.M. and 8 A.M. in her own bed: "when she's older, you're going to miss times like this."

At nineteen years old, Violet Harmon has done enough missing to last her a lifetime and doesn't plan on doing anymore.

* * *

The house looks just like he remembered, old and twisted and alive. He cannot help but smile as he thinks about the times he spent there, shimmying up the drainpipe and into her bedroom (that was once his bedroom all those years ago), sliding into the room like he was so smooth and hadn't ripped a giant hole in his jeans on the way in. It looks like he's never left but Tate's not stupid enough to be that optimistic about the state of everything else. It's the summer so she probably is home from Harvard or Brown or whatever prestigious East coast school she ended up going to because she always said she needed to leave, get out, fuck off as soon as possible (at his darker times, he thinks that if he hadn't gotten arrested, she would've still left without him).

Tate knows this is a bad idea. He knows that her parents now despise him (her mother always nursed a soft spot for him but he doubts that it still exists now that he's a convicted criminal) and that she's probably pissed or, worse, doesn't even give a fuck about him anymore. But he can't help it. Call him a glutton for punishment but he keeps walking to her door, only pausing when his fist makes contact with the door in the four practiced knocks that he always used to announce his arrival, heart beating in anticipation as he wonders what kind of Violet Harmon he'll find waiting for him on the other side of the heavy oak door.

* * *

She's helping Cosette get dressed when she hears it. It must be a coincidence, she tells herself, four knocks in that exact rhythm. It had happened before, never quite as exact but enough to make her heart jump into her throat, thinking it was ihim/i. As she pulls the floral dress over her daughter's head, fixing each button lovingly and begging the wriggly little thing not to move too much, she wonders if she should answer the door. She is only in a t-shirt and Cosette hasn't eaten yet (her mother used to help her out more but then Violet told her to fuck off and stop trying to raise her daughter for her. She'd never been one for receiving aide) and she probably will just be disappointed by the person she finds on the other side of the door.

But then it happens again. Four knocks in the same rhythm. Her heart is speeding up now and she realizes her hands are shaking as she tries to adjust Cosette's wild, golden curls into something resembling a normal human hairstyle. "Mommy, what wrong?" the little girl asks, tugging nervously at the hem of Violet's shirt. Just like her father, she's always been good at telling when something was on her mind. "Nothing. Do you want to come get the door with me?" Violet asks and she nods, reaching up to be carried even though she's slowly becoming too big for it (both of them are trying to hold onto her childhood for as long as they possibly can).

With a two year old on her hip, Violet takes the stairs two at a time because for some reason, this time seems different. This time feels real and she know she shouldn't want to see him (he ruined everything without even knowing it or knowing what their everything even was) but part of her still yearns for him, the part that had convinced her to keep Cosette despite all she had to give up. When they finally reach the door, her heart is beating faster than it ever has before and it's with a shaking hand that she unlocks and opens the door, revealing the absolute first and last person that she wanted to see on the other side.

Tate Langdon.

* * *

Just when he thinks he should give up, that she isn't home or doesn't want to see him or doesn't even know who he is anymore, he hears the lock turning and the sound of someone saying something (it sounds like a little girl but he knows that just must be his imagination). The next few seconds drag on forever as he watches the door open bit by bit, gradually revealing the only person he felt he owed anything to in his whole life.

The world seems to stop spinning as he looks at her. She's different now, taller, fuller, more womanly. There's a bitterness in her eyes that he knows is his doing and for a moment, that's all he can focus on. After that, he is able to take the rest of her in, her long, shapely legs peaking out from under a ratty old t-shirt (ihis/i ratty old t-shirt and his heart can't help but swell, thinking that their is hope for them after all), her knobby knees, her newly expanded bust-line, and then, suddenly his eyes fall on something completely unexpected. A little girl, resting on her hip, who can't be more than two years old and is staring up at him with big brown eyes that he's sworn he's seen before.

"…Violet."

Her name is forcefully pulled from his throat in the worst way and before he can say anything, offer apologies, declare his undying love for her, ask just who the child is (he has an idea but he cannot fully process it, not right now), he watches her expression of complete surprise and shock harden into one of anger and betrayal.

"Go away, Tate!" she snarls and the next thing he knows, the door slams in his face and he's left outside the Murder House feeling even more lost and hopeless than the whole two years and six months he spent behind bars.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you guys so much for the kind words in your reviews! I didn't expect anyone to like this little AU so this is great. Keep them coming! **

* * *

He doesn't know how he ends up on his mother's porch next door but he does, his heart beating wildly in his ears and his mind swimming. He doesn't even try to be polite about trying to get in, alternating between knocking and ringing the doorbell in the hopes that one of them will pull Constance out of her whiskey-induced stupor. Finally, he hears the dulcet tones of his mother cursing and hurrying to the door, saying something about who the fuck on God's green Earth would ever be so fucking stupid to knock and ring the bell that many times and how there will be hell to pay as soon as she gets to the door.

She opens the door and he can tell that she's about to cuss him out, red in the face and eyes wild, but then, her expression falls and she throws her arm around him. "Tate! My sweet boy! My sweet beautiful boy! Why didn't you call Mommy and tell her that you were getting out? Nothing's prepared, my hair's a mess, and Adelaide is off God knows where," she screeches, practically in his ear, as he stiffens up in her grasp. He never liked when she reminded him of the sorry incidence of his birth, the fact that she was the one who brought him into this world. Hell, he doesn't even like it when she touches him and she's doing both things right now and it's enough to make him want to scream.

"Ma, will you cut it out?" Tate mutters, pushing her roughly away from him. Constance does her best impression of a kicked puppy dog which just makes him roll his eyes because he knows if he was still smaller than her, she would've kicked his ass for saying that (there's a glint in her eyes that makes him think that she still thinks she can). She motions from him to come in and he only does because of his rejection from before. He had always thought that he would move in with Violet after he got out….

"For Christ's sake, Tate, I am just happy that my boy is finally home. My lovely, lovely boy. How have you been? They didn't….. do anything to you in there?" she says, with a suggestively raised eyebrow, looking him over as if she can see if he has developed homosexual tendencies while in prison. The look on her face is fucking priceless and he cannot help but laugh, harsh and cruel, because of course that is her first question. For a moment, he thinks about fucking with her and telling her that he has but then he glances over at the Murder House, right next door, and he knows he can't.

"No, Ma. I didn't become a fag," he replies and the relief written all over her wrinkled face is enough to make him regret not lying and spinning some complicated tale about a fellow prisoner who he fell madly in love with and who is taking him to San Francisco. "Good boy," she mutters, patting him on the head like he's one of the dogs she takes care of. She always has treated her dogs better than she ever treated him. She's leading him into the dining room and, without even thinking, he takes up residency at the head of the table, his de facto spot after his father left. She pours him a cup of tea and hands it to him and he takes it just because he has nothing better to do (though the thought of throwing it in her face does cross his mind for a second and brings an inappropriate smile to his lips).

Constance sits across from him and he can tell her fingers are itching for a cigarette from the way she's tapping them on the table. He had to learn to read her when he was younger, learned when she was in one of her whiskey moods and was more liable to beat him or when she was more likely to give him five dollars to go get some ice cream so he was happy for one fucking minute of his miserable life. Right now she is in the middle of both of them and he decides to push her in the direction of the latter because he needs something from her so he slides her carton of cigarettes across the table to her. She smiles so wide that he almost wishes he didn't do it but he really needs to sweeten her up so he gets what he needs from her so when she leans in for her to lit her cigarette for her he does it, but not without entertaining the thought of lighting her perfect gold helmet of hair on fire.

"Thank you, baby," she drawls, dripping in Southern charm and it takes everything in her power to keep himself from rolling his eyes, leave the table, and go get high in his room like he used to whenever she really started to piss him off. But he can't do that now, not when he has so many questions.

"Have you seen Violet at all?" Tate asks, taking another sip of his tea. It's watery but it's something to do while he's waiting for her to answer. She lets out a long sigh and takes another drag off of her cigarette. She never has been particularly fond of Violet and has never made any attempt to hide it.

"Not too often. Those parents of hers have kept her under lock and key ever since the pregnancy. I don't blame them. If one of my children had ended up with child out of wedlock, I would not have left them leave the house either."

"The pregnancy?"

His eyes widen, even though it confirms what he already assumed when he saw her with that little girl on her hip. He just needed his mother's confirmation. A thousand thoughts are working their ways through his mind as he processes this information. His mother, of course, is clueless, sucking rat poison or something else that will hopefully kill her soon with every breath.

"Yes, the pregnancy. It happened shortly after you left. She certainly wasted no time getting over you," she replies, looking at him pointedly. His heart sinks in his chest, unable to believe what he's hearing. Violet? With another boy? He can't believe it, no, not after seeing that little girl with golden curls and bright brown eyes. Tate doesn't know why but he has a feeling that if she had smiled, he would've seen two dimples dig their way into her cherub cheeks. He knows that little girl is his. Violet wouldn't have been as upset with him if it wasn't. Maybe it's wishful thinking but he just can't shake the feeling that there is more to it than his mother is saying.

Or he's completely wrong and he's just asking for his heart to be broken. He doesn't mind as long as it's Violet Harmon that's doing the breaking. Two years and six months have passed but he knows he'll still let her do whatever she wants to him, as long as he gets to hear the pitter-pat of her heart and see the light in her eyes, even if it's just for a moment.

He just needs to talk to her. Make her listen, if it's only for a moment. Tate knows that she's angry and he's not sure if he can blame her (it is really fucked up what he did and he knows he promised her he would never do anything like that ever again) but he just needs to know. His mother is staring at him like he's gone off the deep end again (it's a look that he's familiar with) and he takes a sip of his tea to restore normalcy, if just for a moment. She sighs and he knows the question she's going to ask next, the question she's been asking ever since he first laid eyes on Violet Harmon when he was ten and she moved into the Murder House shortly after the Langdons vacated it.

"You honestly aren't still holding a torch for that damned girl, are you?"

His eyes become angry little slits and he stands up for the table in a huff because she's clearly said just the wrong thing. "Don't talk about her like that!" Tate roars, leaving his mother with eyes wide and the reminder of why exactly this beautiful boy never was the perfect child that she had prayed for as he storms out of the room and up the stairs.

* * *

"Mommy, who was that?"

Cosette's words fall on deaf ears as Violet puts her down just because her arms are shaking so terribly. "No one," she mutters but even at two years old, her daughter knows better. She reaches for her mother's hand and lets her lead her into the kitchen where, thankfully, her mother's housekeeper Moira is cleaning. Never has Violet been more thankful that this house came with a maid, even if she's old and a little creepy. Especially on the weekend her parents went back to Boston to look for a new house and left her alone and defenseless against the hurricane that is Tate Langdon.

"Moira, can you watch Cosette for a second," she asks and the older woman looks up from the countertop she's washing and smiles. Moira always nurtured a soft spot for the little girl, probably because she never had children of her own. She nods and reaches out for the confused two year old who does not quite understand what's going on around her but she still goes with Moira, probably to pick flowers in the garden which was their favorite activity to do together.

As soon as they both leave, Violet starts to lose it, her heart beating as faster than she ever thought possible. She tries to keep herself from hyperventilating, unable to get the way his face fell when she shut the door in his face out of her mind. He looked so sad, so broken…. so ruined. And it was all her fault. But he deserved it. She knows he deserved it for everything he put her through but that doesn't stop it from hurting her.

She knows nothing will make her feel better but she knows she has to try something. The nineteen year old sits down at the counter and pulls out her cellphone, dialing the only person she really talks to about anything anymore: her own mother. Vivien picks up on the second ring, almost as if she knows how badly her daughter needs her.

"Violet! What's the matter?" Her voice is high-pitched and anxiety-ridden and her daughter takes a deep breath, making sure not to cry because she never wants anyone, not even her mother, to hear her cry (the only time it has ever happened was the night she told her mother that she was pregnant and they held each other and cried together because in that moment, they both knew how fucked everything was).

"He's back."

"…I know."

That gives her pause. "What the fuck do you mean, 'you know?" she spits because she's so fucking sick of everyone keeping secrets of her just because they think she's so delicate and broken now that she's a fallen woman, complete with a child out of wedlock and a baby daddy who just got out of prison.

"Constance told me a while ago… I didn't think he would come by… I thought he would know better."

"You thought he would know better? Mom, has Tate Langdon ever fucking known better?"

Her breath is labored now for a different reason as anger pulses through her body. This is the bullshit that her parents used to pull that made her fall in love with someone this fucked up, all these secrets and lies. She hears her mother inhaling and exhaling and she can tell that she's trying to figure out what to say to her distressed daughter. She never has known how to comfort her and Violet knows to stop expecting it from her but that doesn't keep Vivien from trying.

"Violet…. You're being unfair," her mother says and it's a line that she's been fed ever since she went through puberty and became the ornery teenager that she still is today, despite the two years of motherhood under her belt.

"Well, now you know how I've felt for the past nineteen years. All you and Dad have done to me is be unfair!"

Violet hangs up the phone and slams it down on the counter, unable to control herself. She knows she's being childish and her mother doesn't deserve this shit (maybe her father does but she would never call him, especially not about Tate) but Tate brings out the worst in her (or at least that's what her father likes to tell her whenever she says a kind word about him). She knows that this is how it always starts with him, him worming his way into her mind and into her heart. Or at least that was what her father told her and how he rationalized it to her. He is always trying to rationalize Tate Langdon to her, break him down enough so Violet will hate him like her father feels he deserves to be hated.

But no matter how hard she tries, how hard she thinks about all the terrible things he's done or how much easier her life would be without him, Violet just can't forget about him. Tate Langdon is her drug of choice and she doesn't think she'll ever be able to quit.

* * *

He doesn't emerge from his room until Adelaide comes home. She's the only sibling he has left now and one he's always grateful to see. As soon as he hears her feet running up the stairs, he throws his door open and smiles the first genuine smile he has ever since he came home. His big sister runs into his open arms without a wasted second and he hugs her as tight as he possibly could, pressing his face into her hair (it smells just like he remembered, from when he was a child and Addie used to hug him tight whenever Constance flew into one of her whiskey moods). "Tate, I missed you," she says and it's the welcome that he's wanted ever since he stepped out of the prison gates. Someone who he loves telling him that life was different when he was gone.

"I missed you too, Addie. So much."

They sport twin grins as they pull away from each other, reunited at last. They walk toward his bed, taking up residence in the spots they always have sat in, him at the head of his bed and her at the foot. She reaches out for his hand, tracing patterns along the callouses on his hands, ones that he didn't have before. He mutters, "that tickles," but he clearly doesn't want her to stop. He missed her too much. Adelaide was the only thing that kept him from burning their whole house down and taking them with it when he was younger. Until he met Violet, of course.

Violet. Addie must know something about the her and the Harmon family's newest addition. They always got along well and he doubt that that has changed in his absence. Like always, she seems to know what he's thinking almost immediately and smiles. "You're going to ask about Violet. Your pretty girl," she states and he nods, eyes bright and expectant.

"Yeah. And… her daughter."

"Oh! Cosette. I babysit her sometimes. She really likes playing with toy trains."

"Cosette…." He tests the name on his tongue. Violet _would _name her daughter after a Victor Hugo novel, especially one that she always talked about reading at a very important point in her life (when she was thirteen and living through her parents' first almost divorce). For some reason, Cosette's plight spoke to her. Maybe it's because she always wished for a father like Jean Valjean, one who will take her away from all the shit and the piss.

"Do you know who her father is?" he asks and she smiles and it makes his heart skip a beat because he knows what that means but he just needs to hear her say it.

"Of course I do. It's you. She looks just like you. Laughs like you too. Likes all the same games you did when you were a little baby and Mom had me babysit you when she went on dates. She likes it when I read her books about birds."

Tate's heart soars with every word his sister says. It confirms every feeling he's had since he looked at that little baby girl with golden curls and big brown eyes. He runs his hand through his hair, trying to process this new reality. He's a father. He has always had a feeling that he is, ever since he was driven away from Los Angeles to his punishment. Something about the way Violet looked at him when he was being carried off.

"So, she's my daughter," he says, just asking for her confirmation, and she gives it to him, nodding and smiling. Now he knows that he needs to see Violet again, see her and apologize as many times as he possibly can, until she understands. He at least needs to see his daughter again. He's always wanted to be a father, especially of Violet's children, create a family and do it better than both their parents did. They had talked about it before when they had had a pregnancy scare after the first time they had sex (it was more paranoia on her part and the realization of what they had just done). They agreed that it was too early, far too early, but at one point, they could have children together and do a better job than their parents could ever dream of doing. It had all seemed so far away, such a distant dream, but without him even knowing it, it had happened.

"Addie, I need your help." She brightens the second the words leave his mouth. She always has loved helping him. She grabs his hand again and this time it feels like a promise.

"Do you need me to help you see Violet and Cosette again?"

He grins. "Yes, that's exactly what I need."

"Of course I'll help you, Tate!"

She reaches over and hugs him and he feels more alive than he has in two years and six months, because now everything has changed. Now he has hope.


	3. Chapter 3

Tate checks the address on written on his hand for what feels like the one hundredth time. Adelaide had told him where Cosette went to pre-school the night before, after Constance had gone to bed. It didn't take much to find it from there. A quick Googling and he found it, only a walk away from his house, so he set out early in the morning, before Violet leaves so he can wait outside for her. It's one of the best ideas he's ever had and he has Addie to thank.

It's a long hour waiting for her but it's worth it, he thinks. Gives him time to formulate what he needs to say to her because he knows it has to be one of the most beautiful fucking things she's ever heard, to make sure she listens. She always has had a thing for the pretty pictures he could paint with his even prettier mouth.

He's leaning against a tree a few hundred feet away from the entrance of the school, humming an old Nirvana song to himself (one he used to sing into her ear when they were laying in her bed, wishing the world away). He thinks about smoking a cigarette but now that she's a mother, he assumes she probably frowns upon that type of behavior and he doesn't want to do anything that'll piss her off before he's even been able to say his piece.

When he sees them, his heart drops into his stomach. Violet's wearing her standard uniform: floral dress, tights, big cardigan but it looks different on her now. She's small, soft curves where she used to be hard edges and he knows that probably bothers her but when he's watching her walk, all he can think about how they might feel in his hands. Cosette is dressed similarly, little girl floral dress with leggings and Mary Janes, and he can't help but smile at how perfect they look together and it makes him wonder if putting him in between the two of them will ruin it.

She sees Tate before he can say a word and he can tell from the fire in her eyes that she's pissed. She holds up a finger to him, as if to say, "wait a minute," and then kneels down to kiss her daughter (_their _daughter) goodbye for the day and it's enough to make his heart swell with love and pride and everything beautiful in the world and he feels like an interloper, a voyeur, seeing something so perfect with eyes that are too tainted. He looks away for a moment, unable to take it. It's something he isn't meant to see. Not yet.

"I told you to go away."

"I've never been good at following directions."

She rolls her eyes but he knows she isn't really pissed at him. She probably expected him showing up here the second she shut the door in his face. They stand there for a moment, taking in the way each one has changed over the past two years and he sees her shifting underneath the intensity of his stare. "Stop looking at me like that," she mutters and it makes his heart do a flip because he remembers her saying something like that so many years ago, when they were young and innocent and they had just been neighbors rather than lovers and then parents.

"Like what?"

"Like you're trying to make up for two years and six months with your fucking eyes."

God, he loves her. He loves this girl more than he'll ever love anyone in the whole world. With those words, Tate remembers everything they've ever been through together and he feels this overpowering desire to grab her and try to make up for two years and six months with his lips instead and he almost does it too, hand reaching out but she takes a step away and he knows that they aren't there yet. He knows he's lucky just to be talking to her after everything she's done.

"Will you get coffee with me?" It's a line he's been practicing the whole walk over. It's smooth and calculated and not his usual frenzied thoughts and actions (though his hands are still itching to grab her, kiss her, fuck her and he knows he's going to have to watch that, especially since he's trying to prove to her that he's changed) and he can tell that she's surprised. Violet frowns a moment in thought and his heart speeds up because he knows it's so goddamn easy for him to just slam the door in his face again.

"Tate…."

The way her voice sounds breaks his heart. He doesn't know if he can handle another rejection. Though he's putting on a good show, he knows that his sanity, his promise that he's changed is dangling by a thread and she's the one who can cut it. He reaches out for her hand and she doesn't pull away from him but she doesn't hold his hand either. She just lets him touch her and for right now, that's enough for him. "Please, Vi. Just coffee. No funny business. I promise…. You can't deny that we have things to talk about."

She bristles at his last sentence and pulls her hand out of his grasp, eyes wide and accusing. "What exactly do we have to talk about, Tate?" she spits and he feels his heart sinking. No, he's fucking it up again, like he always does. Take a deep breath. Try to save the situation. Don't immediately fly off the handle. He keeps thinking these mantras to himself because he knows that everyone word he speaks to her, every second she decides to still let him be in her presence is a test and right now he's failing.

"I know about Cosette."

The words are quiet and timid because part of him, the dark part, keeps telling him that he's wrong, that the little girl is someone else's because Violet never loved him, not really, and she fucked someone the second she had a chance (he can't really blame her after the hell he put her through). But when he looks up at her, sees the broken look in her eyes, he knows that the darkness is wrong. That little girl is his. He's completely sure of it now. He sees her right herself, folding her arms across her chest like she does whenever she's trying to be reasonable and she looks away from him.

"Who told you?" she asks and he feels so terrible for her in that moment that he wants to die. He's the one who put her in this situation. He doesn't know exactly when he did it but he knows he hates himself for it, first for getting her pregnant with a child she was too young for and second for letting himself be torn away from her in the worst way before she could tell him. He's the worst kind of scum and she's the only person who's ever made him want to repent for it, made him want to change.

"Addie. But please don't get angry with her! I asked. I had a feeling…." he manages, quickly and timidly, not wanting to get his big sister in trouble. He already can tell that Violet's friendship means a lot to her and that the two had become close after he had left. When Addie talked about Cosette, Tate saw a light like he had never seen before in his sister's eyes and he doesn't want that to be taken away from her, not for anything, no matter what happens between him and the little girl's mother. He hasn't seen his sister happy about anything like that in a very, very long time.

Violet sighs, running a hand through her hair. "Don't worry. I could never be angry at Addie. She's been a really big help," she says and he can tell what the suggestion in her words are, that the only reason she needed help was because he had fucked up so bad that he got himself arrested and sentences to thirty two months of prison time. She looks up at him with sad eyes and he hates himself more than he ever has in that moment. He did this to her. He ruined a perfect, strong girl and he knows he's going to spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to her and he's never going to succeed.

"Listen, Vi. I know I have no right to ask anything of you. I've pretty much lost that forever after the shit I've put you through. But…. I miss you. You were all I thought about in there and the only reason I didn't try to hang myself with my fucking socks. I know you're never going to forgive me and that's okay. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve anything from you. I'm lucky you're even looking at me, to be honest. Just…. If you don't hate me too much, can we just get some coffee and talk for a little? I won't try to win you over and if I'm making you uncomfortable or anything, you can leave. I just want to be with you for a little while. That's all."

She's silent for a while and it's almost too much for him to handle. Tate's heart is beating in his ears and his hands are twisting their way around each other and for a moment, he thinks about jumping into traffic because he thinks that will hurt less than her rejection.

But then Violet does something completely unexpected. She says yes.

* * *

She knows that if her father were here right now, he would be pitching a fit. He would say that she was setting herself up to get hurt again and that she was some type of self-hating masochist. He would throw a bunch of big psychology words at her in the effort to make her feel even worse and then he would suggest that maybe she wasn't responsible enough to take care of her own child and all of his terrible things that he saved for whenever Tate Langdon was brought up, until Violet dissolves into a fit of anger and Vivien has to break them up before the fight gets physical on Violet's part.

But he isn't here. It's just her and Tate and now she remembers how easy it was to be with him and to be in love with him. She isn't at that point yet but, she at least can look at his face without wanting to bash it in. They walk in silence (she has a feeling he's still recovering from his confession from the way his hands are shaking) but it's the nice kind of silence between two people who understand each other, the type they were always able to share despite the fact that her parents never could. When they reach the place he has in mind, a small, independent cafe that they used to go to to do their homework, Violet can't help but smile, basking in fond memories of a time between them when everything wasn't darkness and difficulty. He doesn't notice, too caught up in his own thoughts, but when they reach the cafe, he holds the door open for her and she thinks it cute that he's still trying to be a gentleman despite everything they've been through.

They both order the same things they always do (he orders something with a lot of milk and sugar in it that makes her roll her eyes and she orders just coffee, no fix-ins, no nothing) and after receiving their beverages, they set up residence in the spot they always do and it feels almost like nothing's changed but it's the little details that make it clear that it isn't, the way there is an inch more distance between them, the way he seems nervous to even be breathing the same air as her, the way she moves like she hates every inch of what her body has turned into. They sit there in silence for a while, drinking their drinks, and Violet can tell he's trying to figure out what the right thing to say is but is struggling because there is no right thing to say. They are just too broken for that.

"Why didn't you tell me about her?"

His question is sudden and jarring and it's hard for her not to immediately go on the defensive and say something snappy about why he got himself sent to prison when she needed him most. She thinks he sees it in her eyes so he immediately backpedals, holding his hands up as if in surrender. "Not that you had to or anything… I'm just wondering," he adds, quickly, and it's not the words that make her let her guard down but the look in his eyes, so defenseless and pure. That was what sucked her in in the first place, his loveliness in contrast with his darkness.

It's hard answering him because it's a question the young mother barely knows the answer to herself. At first she thought it was to punish him. Or at least that was what her father had suggested she do. Later on, she realized that the only person she was punishing was herself. The answer comes to her as she looks at him again, so vulnerable and delicate despite the fact that he's a criminal, a convicted felon, someone with so much darkness inside him that he can barely understand light. And she remembers.

"I knew that if I had told you, you would try to escape and get yourself killed or your sentence increased or some stupid shit like that. I knew you just… wouldn't be able to help yourself from fucking everything up even more."

Violet knows her words are harsh, sees it in the way he winces away from her but he deserves it. He deserves every terrible thing she can possible say because it's all true. She's always felt so responsible for him, always felt like she's the one who has to punish him, has to teach him right from wrong, because she knows that she's the only person he believes in, listens to, holds responsible for his sins. Sometimes when she was younger it became too much for her to handle but nowadays…. Nowadays it's a task she's not willing to shy away from. Not with so much on the line.

Tate nods like he agrees with her, running a hand through his hair (so much like her little girl's and the very thought makes her heart hurt because she's spent two years carding her fingers through that hair, wishing it could be his). She knows she could say anything to him and he'd take it but she isn't sure if she wants to be his judge, jury, and executioner right now. She just wants to be a girl for a moment. It's a luxury she's not been able to have in so long.

"Can I ask what she's like?" he says, his voice timid and soft, and it warms her heart, it really does, that he's taken an interest in her daughter, his daughter, their daughter. She's always known that he's never been the type to fuck off the second that things get difficult and when they were younger, he would sometimes talk about them having a family together with such light in his eyes. It used to scare and delight her at the same time, the fact that he wanted a life with her. She smiles at him for a moment, trying to string the perfect set of words together to describe her little girl, the light of her life after so much bullshit.

"She's smart. Smarter than all of the kids at her pre-school. Her teachers keep accusing me of teaching her shit outside of class to make the other kids feel bad or something but she's really just that smart. I think I'm going to start teaching her how to read next year. She already loves books and pretends to read them all the time. She's shy though… I think she gets that from you…." Violet trails off for a moment look up at him. It's something she's thought for a while now but never voiced and his eyes widen as he registers what she just said. "She just has trouble getting along with other kids her age. Kind of scared of new people. My dad said that I was nothing like that when I was a kid. Said I fought with everyone… She's really kind. She must've gotten that from you too."

His hand immediately shoots out and grabs hers, forcing her to look him right in the eye in that intense way that he always does that makes her spine tingle in the worst way. "You're kind too, Vi. You're one of the kindest people I've ever known," he says and his sincerity sets her teeth on edge, in the way that only he can.

"That isn't saying much, Tate."

She knows it's a cruel thing to say and maybe she says it just because she wants to prove him wrong. She feels him stiffen and pull away from her, closing in on himself. "Constance doesn't know. I didn't want her to get her talons in her… I knew that if she knew that Cosette was yours… she wouldn't let it go," Violet explains further and he nods because he knows she did the right thing.

"You really love her, don't you?"

His words come suddenly and surprise her. Eyes wide, she looks at him incredulously, as if she could not picture any other way to live. "Of course I do. Why the fuck wouldn't I?"

"….I thought you would hate her… Because you hate me and she's half of me."

She doesn't know why but she's laughing at him, harsh and cruel. Yes, this is the Tate Langdon who drove her crazy with his simplistic, black and white view of the world where he's always the darkness and she's always the light. It drives her crazy and she almost wants to get up and leave just because he can be so fucking infuriating. "No, Tate. It isn't like that. First of all, I don't hate you. I just don't particularly like you right now after you knocked me up then got arrested for fucking assault after you promised me you wouldn't do that shit anymore. She's half of you but she's also my child. She's mine. Not yours. Never yours," she spits and each word she says is like poison in an open wound. He has the look of a kicked puppy dog and part of her wants to slap it off his face and the other part wants to kiss it all better. She crosses her arms across her chest, looking everywhere, anywhere where she doesn't have to be reminded that Tate Langdon exists.

But it's pretty fucking hard when she hears the sounds of him crying. It's quiet, barely noticeable, and probably unseen and unheard by everyone else but she's become so in-tuned to him and everything that he is that she can't ignore it. "Stop it," she mutters, half-heartedly before handing him a napkin. He takes it and wipes away barely there tears but she can tell that he's still hurting and that it's because of her. Violet knows she went too far. She shouldn't have said that Cosette would never be his. She knows that's what hurt him, above everything else. He's always just wanted something, anything, to call his own and it used to be her but it isn't anymore, no matter how badly he wants it.

"You're really fucking angry at me," he says, finally. His voice still shakes a little but he's recovered for the most part and no longer is he the vulnerable little boy but the closed off man with darkness in his eyes and in his heart. She nods, takes a sip off her coffee, and leans back in her chair.

"Can you really blame me, Tate? You left me… you left me alone. You said that you would never leave me and then the next night you left me alone."

They are the words she's wanted to speak to him for two years and six months and she watches him visibly soften and when he reaches out to grab her hand, comfortingly, lovingly, she lets him, even grabs his in return. "I know. I'm so sorry, Violet. You don't have to forgive me. I don't deserve it. I've never regretted anything in my life like I regretted that night…. You were the only good thing I had and I had to go and fucking ruin it… I won't let that happen again. No matter what we are, I won't let you down again." They are sweet words and she wants nothing more than to believe them but something, like always, is holding her back and she just sighs, sadly, and he doesn't press her, doesn't ask her if she believes him because he knows what the answer is going to be: how can I believe you after everything you put me through?

They sit together in silence for a while, the air between them thick with the sadness of two people who are so irreparably broken that they cannot even imagine a world where they will be fixed. He's still holding her hand and she's holding his back, running her thumb along new callouses that have formed during their time apart. Violet can't help but look at him, something like a smile playing across her lips, not because of what they have been talking about but because she's just realized how happy she is to have him back in her life, no matter how much bullshit has come with it.

"You can come over tonight. My parents are gone for a week looking for a new place in Boston for them and their bandaid baby. I'm just going to be making dinner for me and Cosette. You can eat with us… Spend some time with her. But you aren't allowed to tell her that you're her father or do anything else that might confuse her."

"Like what?"

"Kiss me in front of her. Grab my ass. I don't know. Things that are generally confusing to a two year old who still thinks she was delivered by the stork."

Tate smiles and it warms her heart like nothing before, almost as much as when she held their daughter for the first time. "Okay," he says, smoothing his finger along the soft skin of her thumb. For a moment, she can't help but wonder if this is a bad idea, if letting him back in will destroy her like it did all those years ago. It is only when the thought crosses her mind that she realizes she doesn't care.

"This is just as friends, Tate. I don't want you to get any of your fucking ideas. I'm still pissed at you and I'm probably going to be for a very long time. But she's your daughter-" she trails off, unable to voice the thought that follows simply because it holds too much truth in it and it's a truth that she doesn't want to speak to him yet. _And I need you. I don't think I can do this alone. _

"No ideas. No funny business. I promise," he replies and he grins at her and it's the same grin she's seen everyday for the past two years on her daughter's sweet little face and she can't help but grin back at him. She missed him. She missed him so much that she doesn't want to leave him, not after two years and six months of being apart, so when they get up to leave, she asks him to walk her home (it can't be seen as too much of a grand gesture, given the fact that they live on the same street).

It's only when he drops her off at her house that she realizes that she held his hand the whole walk back.

* * *

**A/N:** **Sorry this chapter took a while! Got caught up in college bullshit. Anyway, reviews make my day so please don't be shy! **


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